Harry Potter One Shots

He Called Her Luna

A/N

I found the aesthetic ages after I wrote this and it fits so well wth

Lily got the call at approximately eight o'clock on a Tuesday night. She had just finished a game of scrabble with James, and was headed up to her room to make a start on the English assignment she had received that day. Just as she was pulling out her desk chair, her phone vibrated from where it lay on top of the keyboard in the corner of her room, and with a frown Lily picked it up, assuming it was her cousin Rose wanting to chat, or her brother Albus's boyfriend, Scorpius, calling to ask her to tell Albus to check his phone. The name that popped up on screen, however, was one she hadn't seen in awhile. Avery Thomas. Lily almost hung up then and there, but something made her click the green 'accept' button.

"Luna?" It was the use of her middle name that made Lily truly believe it was him, because no-one else ever called her that.

"Sorry, who's speaking?" Lily tried to keep her voice neutral, and she felt a surge of satisfaction at the hurt in Avery's voice as he continued speaking.

"Luna, it's me, Avery."

Lily rolled her eyes and sat down on the seat set before the keyboard.

"I know who you are, Ave."

A breath exhaled.

"I wanted to talk to you," Avery said, and Lily's grip on the phone tightened.

"Oh yeah? What about?" It was harder to keep the anger out of her voice now.

There was silence, and Lily could imagine Avery biting his lip, the way he always did when he didn't know what to say. As she waited for him to speak, she pictured him in her mind. He was probably in his bathroom, sitting on the closed lid of the toilet, just like he always was whenever he was on the phone to her, to avoid teasing from his brothers and demands that he study, or tidy his room from his mother.

"I want to talk about us, Luna."

"Can you not call me that?" Lily said sharply.

There was a pause.

"What do you want me to call you then?"

"My name."

"Luna is your- never mind. I want to talk about us, Lily."

She felt a pang in her chest hearing him say her name like that. She couldn't remember when he had started calling her Luna, but she had got so used to it that when he called her Lily it was almost as though he wasn't talking to her.

"Us?" Lily said, pretending to be surprised. "As in- you and me us?"

"Yes."

"Well there is no us, Avery. You ruined whatever 'us' we were two months ago."

"I know, I'm sorry, I didn't think-"

"Really? It seemed very well thought out to me," Lily said coldly.

"I didn't realise how much it would-"

"Hurt me?"

Silence.

"You know, if you had just talked to me, Ave, like I talked to you, if you'd opened your fucking mouth and told me the fucking truth-"

"I should've talked to you, Lu- Lily, you're right, I'm sorry." He had winced at her swearing. Lily had forgotten that part of him. Unlike most guys her age, he detested profanity. It was one of the things that had drawn her to him in the first place.

"But instead, you just broke up with me after I'd completely opened up to you and revealed this whole secret part of me that no-one knew about." Lily laughed bitterly. "I trusted you, Ave."

"I haven't told anyone," he replied quickly.

"I don't care, Avery, everyone knows now anyway, It was never that big a deal, and definitely not something to break up over."

"I didn't understand - I thought it meant you didn't love me."

Lily laughed again, but this time out of sadness.

"I never stopped loving you. But you- you didn't love me, did you? You saw an easy way out, a way to end things that made it seem like it was my fault. Did you ever really love me?"

There was a pregnant pause, during which Lily's stomach tightened and she felt bile rise in the back of her throat.

"You didn't."

"Luna I-"

"I told you not to call me that." Lily's voice was laced with venom.

"We shouldn't do this over the phone," Avery said hurriedly.

"And yet we are."

"Lu- Lily, I thought I did."

Tears had filled Lily's eyes, but when she spoke her voice was clear and sharp with fury.

"Oh, you thought, did you? Well that makes everything okay!"

"After I said it the first time, I couldn't stop. It was like a- a-"

"Disease? Coincidentally, I have one too, or at least that's what you thought it was. It's called asexuality and it doesn't prevent me from being in love."

"I know that now. I did some research, and I get what it is."

"You're so clever, Avery, doing your research. Did you find out much? Did you use the laptop I bought you."

"Lu- Lily, can we talk about this?"

"We are talking about it, Avery. You called me, and said you wanted to talk, so we started talking. It's only been two months since I've heard from you. 61 days is nothing, in the scheme of things."

"I missed you, Luna. Every day."

"You're not allowed to miss me. You left me."

"But I do, Luna. I miss you so much."

"Stop. Calling me. That," Lily said through gritted teeth.

"Look, if you're not even going to try and put this relationship back together..."

Lily slammed her fist down on the keyboard, ignoring the loud clash of notes and the exclamation from Avery. She was so angry. First, he had called her, after a month of silence. Then, he had made weak, bottomless apologies and excuses. He had then preceded to tell her that he had never loved her. And now-

"You want to get back together?" There wasn't even the slightest trace of hope in her voice. "You just told me that you didn't love me, and now you want to be in a relationship with me?"

"Before I... broke up with you... we wanted to work things out."

"Well I don't fucking want that anymore, Ave. You-" Lily took a deep breath. "Fuck you," she said quietly.

"What?"

Lily crashed her hand back down on the keyboard.

"Fuck you, Avery Thomas. Fuck you, fuck you, fuck-" He had hung up. "Fuck." Tears were streaming down Lily's cheeks, hot, angry tears, and she threw her phone on the ground and wiped her face viciously.

"He's not worth crying over, Luna," she told herself, and then realised what she had called herself and cried even harder.

Hunched over the keyboard, she squeezed her eyes shut and waited for the tears to stop, but they kept falling, plastering her hair to her cheeks and stinging her eyes.

She didn't love him. She didn't love him.

"I don't love you," she whispered, voice breaking.